


The Spirit of Things

by orphan_account



Category: Ghost - Mystery Skulls (Music Video), Mystery Skulls (Band)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 11:37:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2849534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you're born with it. Sometimes it's just plain genetics. (Merry Holidays everyone!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spirit of Things

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas or Hannukah or Kwanza or winter or whatever you celebrate! Also sorry for any errors I might have. I usually use FF.net for spellcheck but apparently they've disabled that function for some reason and also it's four in the morning and I'm lazy.

When Arthur was a kid his uncle Lance used to always take him to the renaissance fair. Whenever everyone found he was named Arthur Kingsmen being carried around on the shoulders of Lance Kingsmen they bowed down to him.

"King Arthur," the men and women used to say in their weird clothes and accents every year, "here to kill the dragon?"

It was fun because not every year was the same though he certainly always slayed the dragon. Sometimes they'd have him pull out a 'sword' out of a 'rock'. Sometimes they'd have him ride around a horse with a huge stick, sometimes they'd spoil him rotten with food and presents until it felt like it was a second birthday. Sometimes there was singing and dancing and plays starring him saving the day.

It was fun. It was joyful. It was for babies.

"I don't want to go this year." Arthur says at the ripe old age of 11. The other kids thought renaissance fairs were boring. He heard Jacque say it was for nerds. Arthur didn't want to be a nerd. He wanted to be cool.

"But sweetie you've been going every year since you were four." His mother says. She doesn't understand. She wasn't really a cool mom, not like Caiti's mom who went skydiving or Lester's mom who worked as a cop. All his mom ever did was nag.

"I don't wanna." Arthur says with a petulant pout.

"Y'know kid." His father says from behind his newspaper and his half empty coffee mug, "You're Uncle Lance was really excited to take you to the fair this year. He even made you that flying toy dragon."

Arthur's eyes pop, his mouth stretching to a tiny 'o'. "The one I drew? He made it?"

"Oh but honey," His mother says, "big boys don't play with dragon toys."

Arthur sits back in his chair, struggling to keep his face in check while his mother and father sneak conspiratorial glances at each other.

.

When Uncle Lance knocks on the door to his room early next morning there's no dragon toys hung from the ceiling like model airplanes, no knights lined up on the windowsill and no King Arthur tales on the shelves. Instead there's a sports car poster hung lopsided and with too much tape on the ceiling.

"I'm not going." Arthur says. "The fair is for little kids."

"I'm not a little kid." Uncle Lance points out, his knight costume already on, the well shined helmet held in two very well made gauntlets.

Arthur flushes but stands firm, his tiny two fists consumed by his armpits. He glares and pouts, chubby lower lip sticking out and Lance would laugh but he knows how fragile his nephew's ego is.

"I'm not going." Arthur says.

"There'll be oyster pizza." His uncle wheedles, bending down to one armor-plated knee. "You're favorite."

Arthur just shakes his head.

"Come on, you're mother worked hard on your costume this year." Lance says and seemingly on cue his mother walks in, grinning and showing off a wonderful red cape, a golden crown and a yellow star badge proclaiming him king.

"I've been working on it for weeks." His mother says. He feels a tug at his heart because he did ask his mother to make him a king costume earlier this month. Before renaissance fairs weren't cool and the costume did look good, just what he imagined he'd look like if he were king.

He reaches out, his hands smoothing out soft, orange fabric and polka dotted white and black fur. It was nice, and the crown would probably fit his head better than the too big crowns from the fair-

But what if someone from school saw him? He'd be called a nerd for days. Get picked on like Rachel gets picked on with her dorky glasses and bad accent. He retracts his hand back to his side and shakes his head.

But his mother and Uncle Lance aren't to be deterred. They grin at each other and slowly Uncle Lance pulls out something from his helmet. Yellow scales, long twisting black horns, angel-like dark orange wings; the dragon Arthur lovingly drew for the new fridge come to life.

Uncle Lance places it in front of Arthur's wiggly toes like a peace offering and then pulls out a remote control from the helmet as well. He flicks a switch and the dragon comes to life: the dragon's mouth flickers and Arthur can say a tiny lightbulb in the back flickering brightly, a roar emits from what Arthur knows is speakers but could just as well be a real dinosaur, the wings flicker, the thick tail flicks left to right.

It's amazing, it's just how he imagined. It would be the perfect dinosaur to 'slay'. No,  _better_ , to 'tame' for his own. King Arthur the dragon tamer. He grins at the thought, his hands already closing around the dragon's throat and tail, lifting it up to inspect closer.

The scales are some kind of thick rubber, the wings a leathery but hard substance, the horns incredibly detailed with little edges and bumps.

He looks at Uncle Lance who grins at him and his mother who coos at the toys movements.

He remembers his peers, all jeering at a girl for just having glasses that didn't fit quite right and an accent too foreign. He remembers Jacque, the most popular kid in their class, laughing at him when he started talking about renaissance fairs. Calling him names when the teacher was elsewhere. He's not a baby. He's not.

He grips the animatronic, the thick tail a little too big for his hand, and with a churning in his chest throws the gift to the corner of the wall. It strikes against the orange painted wall with a bang that shakes the frame, leaving an indent and it falls with a clang, the head popping off with a dying roar and the wings lying bent. The tail still swings but it isn't as smooth as it was, more like back and forth flailing then the gentle sweep before.

He turns to Uncle Lance and his mother and states, a frown tugging at his lips and something vicious in his throat, "I'm not a baby. I'm not going."

His mother slaps him, right across the cheek and the sting of it brings tear to his eyes. The shock is what keeps them up there.

"Uncle Lance worked very hard to make that for you!" She admonishes sharply, "Apologize right now!"

Arthur mumbles and doesn't look up, the sting fading but the tears still in his eyes. "I'msorryUncleLance."

"Sorry for what?" His mother adds sharply, "and speak up. Look him in the eye!"

Arthur bites the inside of his cheeks and looks up, up, up, to where Lance stands at his full height, a knight in shining armor who presented his king with a dragon, and bites out, "I'm sorry Uncle Lance for killing your dragon."

Uncle Lance shrugs, "It was for you anyway kid." which just makes Arthur's shoulders hunch in further. "I'll come back for it later, right now I'm already late." Uncle Lance says, donning his helmet and leaving, his heavy boots like deep drums in Arthur's ear.

"You are grounded." His mother says once the front door slams shut. "You are grounded for the next month and when your father comes home he is going to hear about this." She says, staring at him with those eyes made of flames and that mouth like the edge of a sword. She exits the room with a slam and so he is left with nothing but a car poster on the ceiling and a broken dragon toy.

.

"Hey, I brought you a snack from the fair." Lance says, opening the door to Arthur's room, it's late, he just got back from the ren fair but he wanted to see how his nephew was faring. Arthur usually loved going to the fair, loved the attention and the food and the 'funny way the people speak', it boggled his mind as why'd he wouldn't want to come this year.

He's expected to see the kid fast asleep, its way past his bedtime but instead there's wiggling and the quick flash of illumination before it peters out. The kid was awake then. Quietly he steps nearer.

"Shit!" Lance curses quietly, holding his aching foot, he bends down low grasping for what had hurt him, when he comes across it the weight is familiar in his hands. Cold metal, the slightest hint of grease, a round bottom and a stick with a slightly pointed top.

"Kid what the hell are you doing with a screwdriver?" Lance reaches over, turning on the lamp on the bedside table and Arthur's eyelids twitch briefly but do not open. "Kid, I know you're awake."

Arthur's guilty eyes open and whisper, "You're not suppose t' curse."

"And you're not supposed to be awake at this hour." Lance says, "Now what were you doing with a screwdriver?"

Arthur gets up, shoving the blankets back to reveal kid safety-scissors and in his left hand and the dragon toy that Lance designed based off Arthur's drawings in his right. In the boy's lap is some tape and the bedside table is some industrial glue. The head is back on and the left wing is uncentered but not as bent as it was. If Lance didn't have such a critical eye for machinery he would say it was brand new.

"That's very good Arthur."

"That's not all." Arthur says, grabbing the remote control from the bedside table, with a few modifications. The gameboy that Arthur said was broken, the one he begged Lance to fix but always forgot to bring over, had the back taken out of it. Wires were connecting the two together by little pieces of tape and probably glue. Lance felt shifted foot from foot. This should be good. "Watch this."

He flips the switch and all the motions occur, the mouth lifts, the light bulb flickers at all the right intervals and intensity. The left wing twitches a little and doesn't spread as far as the right one does but that's still very impressive considering the left wing was bent and, Lance had thought, snapped the circuitry. The tail sweeps, as it once did, gently with a grace of a real reptilian.

Then Arthur flicks the switch off and everything stops. The dragon's mouth agape and the wings spread in full, the tail standing proud. He reaches over and presses the a button on his gameboy.

The head swivels.

Lance did not program that.

Arthur presses the B button, lifting the volume scroll just the tiniest bit.

It roars on command. Lance also did not program that.

Arthur presses up and down and the four stout legs move on command and Lance also did not have time to program that. Arthur smiles his tooth-gapped smile at his Uncle's raised eyebrows because there's not much that can impress Uncle Lance but he knows. He knows he just did.

"You're not a bad kid you know that Arthur." Uncle Lance says, ruffling his nephew's messy raven locks.

"Does that mean you can get me out of being grounded?" Arthur asks.

"Not a chance." Lance says digging his well-toned fingers into his nephew's scalp to the point that Arthur was shrinking away. "Not even a ghost of a chance. I worked hard on that toy you know."

.

Arthur, as it turns out, is a prodigy with machines. The boy has a natural affinity for cogs, screws, and bolts, his tongue sticking ever so slightly out and his thick eyebrows furrowing in concentration as he turns scrap into toys to later show off to his classmates. He's even started a little business out of it. He is so good with machines that Lance thought it best if he had his own part in Uncle Lance's workshop, away from all the dangerous stuff of course. To grow his hand and maybe introduce his nephew to the business.

It's while Arthur is working on someone's broken toy truck, the axis bent in two and the wheel stuck sideways, that Lance introduces him to Galahad.

"Guess what I got?" Lance says, his large hands hidden behind his broad back.

"What?" Arthur asks, his eyes focused on the axis. He might have to replace it.

Lance chuckles and puts the hamster right under his nephew's nose. He watches as Arthur blinks, refocusing on the tiny hamster nose sniffing the air and feels as the hamster shifts to stand in his hand, putting tiny paws on Arthur's face. Arthur's face lightens up, putting down the toy truck on the work desk.

"A hamster!" He squeals bringing amused looks from the working mechanics, the little lines on his forehead disappearing and his smile bringing happy chittering from Galahad.

"Found the little guy in a pet store. The worker said no one would buy so I thought I would. His name's Galahad." Lance explains, gently lowering Galahad to the work table. The hamster is small compared to the toy truck, his face, belly and paws covered in white fur but its back and head is mostly orange. There is a tuff of black sticking out in between the line of orange bordering the hamster's face and topping the hamster's beady eyes like eyebrows.

"Why would anyone not want to buy him?" Arthur asks but is answered once he takes a closer look. His face falls.

"He's broken." Arthur says as he looks at the hamster's behind. The hamster seems to shrink on itself but it still didn't hide the fact that it didn't have any hind legs, white fur growing sparse to show pink flesh. Arthur brings one greased finger to push the hamster forward and Galahad puts two tiny paws on the floor and scoots, not going really far, which makes Arthur frown further.

"Now, see here, he's not broken." Lance says, scooping the angrily chittering hamster. "He was just born differently. He's as good as you and me."

But Arthur was some place else, consumed by machinery and broken toy truck wheels.

"You know Arthur. For a boy so good with fixing and creating things, you are really slow."

.

When Lance introduces 'new and improved' Galahad Arthur is excited for all of thirty minutes. But in those thirty minutes he is curiosity and wonder and constant questions. How does it work? How did you make it fit so well? How does he maneuver so quickly? How does he not fall down?

Lance tries to explain, tries to emphasise on the concept of broken and fixed and how its not quite as easy a thing as the boy thinks. He thinks he gets through to the kid. Either way Arthur looks at Galahad with excited eyes and Galahad looks back balancing expertly on his two wheels.

He leaves the two alone because its work day hours and he's still running a business but after thirty minutes he hears a scream of frustration and Galahad is wheeling up to him, his cheeks full of something. Bolts and screws, he finds out when Arthur comes up to him crying about the 'stupid hamster'.

"Maybe if you apologized." Lance says, wiping his hands on an already dirty handrag. "He wouldn't steal your stuff."

Arthur huffs, his brilliant nephew, his stupidly prideful nephew, "Apologize? For what?"

Galahad spits out a screw and it bounces against the floor at an angle, hitting against Arthur's shin sharply. Arthur glares down at Galahad.

"Maybe he's hurt because you called him broken last week." Lance says lightly, glad that it was a slow day.

"But he is broken." Arthur says bluntly in the way only children and oblivious fools can. Maybe his talk didn't go so well as he planned but he wasn't exactly parent material.

Galahad chitters angrily below them, constantly wheeling into Arthur's shoe as if his newfound wheels could move mountains. Lance is flattered that the hamster would think so highly of his work. Maybe he'd upgrade it's wheels with some vertical grip so he'd be able to put some sense in his nephew.

.

"Second place isn't that bad." Arthur's parents say. But they don't understand. They didn't spend all night making the laser beam. They weren't beaten by a kid with a mini tornado machine. They weren't beaten just because a stupid hamster thought it was fun to mess with a few bolts and screws.

Arthur doesn't say anything on the car drive back home. He doesn't say anything as he slams the door to his room shut. The hamster, Galahad, or Galaham as Arthur liked to call it, was back where he belonged at his Uncle's but the water feeder his mom had to buy was still there along with the wheel fixing kit his Uncle gave him just in case.

In his anger Arthur thinks nothing of swiping the items off the desk. It lands in a heap in a corner, water spilling everywhere. He doesn't care.

Frustrated he rips at his tools, the toys that he promised to fix, the blueprints he's been working on. He rips at them all because he is 12 and no one's ever told him how to take failure.

Late at night, after the lights are out and his father yells at him to go to sleep he thinks about fixing and how stupid it is. He thinks about hamsters and how stupid they are. He thinks about science fairs and how nerdy they are. He thinks about his classmates who praises his work and his teachers who praises his work and then about the whispers he hears about him that aren't so much praise as they are the truth.

" _He's a nerd."_

" _He's such an attention hog."_

" _Oh, I'm Arthur and I can fix anything! Pay attention to me! Ugh, I want to_ **barf** _."_

.

Arthur is fourteen and he has friends. He's never really had friends before. They're older than him by two years and the coolest people in school. They're the kids who skip class and have real jobs and smoke in front of the grocery store and they think Arthur is cool.

Arthur's never been called cool before. His creations sure, but never him. Which is why Arthur clings to the adjective like a limpet, does anything to stay in the boundary of cool.

At first its dying his hair. One day the crew decides to dye their hair one by one until finally its just Arthur in his plain jet black hair. That night he locks himself into the bathroom, an awful odor seeping through the door and when he comes out its to his mother bemoaning his raven locks. He doesn't get what the big deal is. It's his hair, it's his life.

And with all angsty teenagers whose parents don't understand them and doesn't want to seem like a whiner to his friends he turns to the only person he can.

Uncle Lance.

"I don't see what the big deal is." Arthur says, a french fry hanging off his mouth, "I mean it's my hair."

"Mmhmm."

"And it's not like I stole the money for the bleach."

"Mmhmm. Pass me that screw would you?"

"And it's not like I'm the only one that's doing it. If anything I'm literally the  _last_  one." Arthur says, flexing his open palm in frustration.

Lance nods, two screws held in place by a tight lipped scowl and a broken radio sitting useless on the kitchen table.

Arthur waits patiently. Stuffing his face with french fries until he finally asks, "What do you think?" His hands unconsciously going through his blonde, artificially spiked up, hair

Lance spits out the last screw and it lands, point side up, "I think it suits you."

"Really?" Arthur asks, swallowing.

"Yeah," Lance says, his large hand reaching to ruffle stiff hair. "You're definitely a dumb blonde."

"Hey!" Arthur says, leaning backward and swatting at the large hand.

"Also you missed a spot behind your ears."

"No way, oh man I used up all my bleach!"

.

This is how it goes until Arthur reaches 16. He follows along like a lost puppy, bringing his inventions like little gifts only to be rejected time and time again until he stops bringing them all together. He dyes his hair over two years, always missing a spot and tries his best to fit in. He drops his grades despite him knowing all the answers and he tries smoking once or twice. He goes out late and comes home later and his parents are very disappointed in him.

They fight. They make up. He feels guilty. He stops for about a week telling his buddies that he shouldn't really be doing this. He does it anyway the following tuesday night.

For two long years this is how it works.

Until one day they're not scoping out the park after night or hanging around the movie theaters at midnight. The other guys are in their senior year and they want to do something  _fun_.

Arthur wants to be a part of that fun too.

The guys crowd into Gerald's pickup and while everyone's trading cigarettes and laughing at dirty jokes Arthur feels his stomach churn in nervous excitement.

Gerald drives up to a warehouse. There's no light in the windows and there is no cars in the lot but there's a keep out sign and a very tall gate ending in barbed wire.

Brendley, the unsaid leader, walks up to the gate and gestures to Arthur and then to the padlock. "You can break it can't you?" He asks, stuffing his cig out on his hand leaving a black pockmark on his palm.

Arthur gulps. "Where are we?"

"The middle of the ocean. Does it fucking matter? Can you do it or not?"

Everyone's looking at him. Arthur gulps but grins, "Yeah, psh, sure I can do it." And he can. He know he can. He just doesn't know if he wants to.

Brendley grins, all bright teeth and upturned lips. He nods and steps aside and Arthur falls to his knees taking the pin from Hailey with downturned eyes.

It takes him a few minutes to open the lock, the metal cold on his hands already freezing hands but when he does they all whoop and clap his shoulders. Gerald goes for the main door of the warehouse but this time its not a padlock. It's a card swipe at the side of the door.

He walks up slowly, cautious of any cameras but as far as he knows there isn't any, and looks inside the windows. It's dark inside but he could just make the silhouette of something. A lot of somethings. Whatever this warehouse, it's not abandoned.

"Uh, guys where are we?"

"It's a warehouse that manufactures guns." Hailey says, her dark black lipstick making her usually manic grin look even more crazy, "Cool right?"

"Guns!?"

"Relax kid," Gerald says, "She means airsofts and shit."

Arthur looks through the window, the moonlight streaming into what could be hard metal or harmless plastic. He still couldn't tell.

"Can you hack this?" Brendley asks. Arthur silently walks to the card swipe cursing himself with every step. He looks blankly at the device, his hindbrain coming up with ways, wires he could cross so the door would unlock.

After a few minutes he says, "I don't think I can."

"What do you mean you don't think. Either you can or can't." Brendley says, puffing his smoky breath into Arthur's face in the way they both know he hates.

Arthur shakes his head,. "I can't."

"This is fucking bullshit." Gerald says.

"What kind of a fucking nerd are you?" Gerald says from behind, tugging on the collar of Arthur's puffy vest. Arthur falls on his ass, looking up to the three people he's been idolizing for the past two years.

"I told you he was useless." Hailey says.

"C'mon, I bet we could find another way in." Gerald says, tugging at Hailey's arm. They leave, they leave him on the cold March ground and he turns to Brendley. Brendley who stares at him as if he was prep or a one of those scholastic nerds, his lips twisted on the ground and a hand reaching for his lighter. Like he wanted to burn Arthur alive.

"Well that's two years wasted down the drain. Way to be useless Kingsmen." He says and then walks away. Something tells Arthur they're not going to give him a ride home.

.

After that he is alone. In two months the others graduate and he is stuck at his Uncle Lance's working part time while his parents not so subtly accuse his every move. He gets a van from his uncle for his seventeenth birthday party, a little thing that was about to be sent to the graveyard, and he fixes it up as a distraction to his crumbling social life. By the time senior year has rolled around he's half tempted to drop out and just start working full time at Kingsmen Mechanics.

But then he meets Lewis and Vivi.

.

Lewis works at Pepper Paradiso, he's a straight A student and he doesn't really know what he wants to do but he knows his parents will back him up 100 percent. He is tall and huge but also couldn't hurt a fly. He has a friend named Vivi who's already graduated and who's obsessed with the paranormal.

He is nice and he is kind and he is easy to talk to and so is Vivi. Vivi who works at Tome Tomb and has a pet dog named Mystery. Vivi who is older than them but that doesn't mean she doesn't know what she's doing. Vivi whose blue hair suits her unlike Hailey and her neon blue. They both don't mind that he's a nerd who likes to go to renaissance fairs and plays Super Smash Bros and they know he's a scaredy cat. They're friends with him anyway.

Uncle Lance says he hasn't seen Arthur this happy since he was a boy at the renaissance fair. Arthur thinks he might even be happier.

"So, we were thinking." Vivi says, it's the night of their graduation and they were celebrating at Pepper Paradiso, the family restaurant closed for the celebration. "We've always wanted to go around to solve mysteries."

Beside her Lewis nods.

"And I know you're not really into ghosts and stuff but it's not like its going to be a full time thing, and I know you just got out of high school but that's the time to have fun right?"

"What she's getting at," Lewis interrupted with a smile, "is would you like to join us Arthur?"

It's true Arthur is afraid of Ghosts. He also hated his blonde hair dye and what it signified until Vivi thought it was cute, with the little black on these two locks upfront from where he messed up again. He thinks he'll live.

"Sure." Arthur says, smiling timidly.

"Great!" Vivi chirps, "You were the only one with a vehicle so we were fucked without you."

Lewis chuckles at her bluntness and Arthur feels his bottom dropping out but he laughs along too.

.

They redo the van, all four of them. Arthur insists the van be orange and they follow that but Lewis says it looks empty. So they decide to get a logo. She insists Mystery be written in bold red and underneath repeated in katakana, since he's their mascot and everything.

Lance, watching them from his porch and gracious enough to let them dip into his paint supply, suggests Mystery Skulls, holding up a skull stencil in his right hand and a question mark symbol identical to Mystery's dog tag in his left.

"It's perfect!" Vivi says, and they get to painting. By the time they're done they have to be washed down because of an impromptu paint fight which causes another water fight which just causes all around giggles.

"It really is perfect." Lewis says wistfully, his eyes taking in the van's bulkiness. Vivi and Mystery are inside eating while Lewis and Arthur are outside still drying. Arthur wonders how long Vivi and him have been talking about this, traveling around searching out ghosts. He wonders how many nights they've dreamt of this, had the maps all planned out, the hotel's bookmarked on internet browser's, just didn't have a transport. But now they did.

Their first expedition is next week, a town over, there's this talk of a haunted school. Arthur hopes there's no actual ghosts but at the same time that would mean this would be over quicker. No matter how shiny the car if there was nowhere to go then it was useless.

He hopes it isn't useless.

.

They still have jobs to do, still have bills to pay but they go out at least once every other month. Sometimes they don't go to a haunted house but an anime convention, a rock concert, a renaissance fair, whatever catches their fancy. It's fun, sitting in the van, singing along to whatever's on the radio and laughing with the others. It's fun, coming up with crazy answers to impossible hypotheticals. It's like when being at the renaissance fairs when he was a kid, being a king while also being  _Arthur_  and its like seeing the light again after years of being in the dark and he doesn't want to go back. He wants to stay here forever with his two best friends and a lazy dog who eats too much and wears funny glasses ' _because'_.

Forever ends so much quicker than what Arthur wanted.

.

Vivi and Lewis get together. That's not such a big thing. People get together all the time. They get together when Arthur is swamped with mechanic work and when they come back their eyes are all gooey and they're smiles are all sweet. Arthur who has never kissed a guy or gal feels something in his chest clamp shut at that. Or maybe something like a pang. He doesn't know. All he knows is that he is a third wheel and Mystery sitting oblivious does nothing to comfort him.

He kinda wants to tug them apart, kinda want to remind them that he's still there too.

" _You know the guy who owns the van? The guys gracious enough to let you live out your dreams? Yeah, I'm still here."_  He does not say because yeah, he might be dense but even he knows how selfish that sounds.

So he says nothing because he might be the one who owns the van but they're the ones who own his heart and he doesn't think he can handle another rejection.

.

They ride up to a cave, its haunting green glow giving Arthur the creeps while the very obvious skull and crossbones warning sign tells a dangerous road lie ahead.

"Oh come on." Vivi says, "You'd think after three years of this you'd grow some balls."

Lewis chuckles, pulling the van door open. He holds out his broad hand, "Come on Arthur, the quicker we get through this the quicker you can beat our ass in Super Smash Bros."

"Pfft."

Arthur takes Lewis' hands and then grips his shoulders for most of the cave beginning. They come across a fork in the road. Arthur groans and grips tighter, digging his bitten fingernails into Lewis' collarbone.

"Let's split up gang." Lewis says. "Arthur, since you're clinging onto me anyway lets go up. Vivi and Mystery will go down."

They split up, going higher and higher until they reach an opening upon a cliff face overseeing a sharp, deadly fall into some stalagmites. Arthur watches as Lewis bends down to see the extent of the fall and that's when the voices start.

That's when it all falls apart.

" _Push him."_ Flashes of Lewis falling.

" _Push him and it'll all be over."_ Flashes of him, Vivi and Mystery all smiling in the van, heads bobbing to some song on the radio.

" _Push him and you'll never be alone again."_ Arthur with a full family like Lewis', a family who loves him and bears no suspicion when he drops by or travels out of state. A clean slate.

 _And the worst part,_  Arthur will think in the nightmare fueled months to come,  _the worst part_ , he will think when he is all alone,

_the worst part is that voice sounded so much like me, that even I thought it was mine._

Arthur watches in horror as Lewis falls. He watches with tears in his eyes as Lewis reaches upward in terror. He watches and tries to control his left arm.

He watches and feels useless.

Then there is pain. Pain shooting up his left arm and now he can see with  _both_  his eyes, something he didn't know he couldn't before until he's looking at Lewis with twenty twenty vision, his usually tan face so pale and his eyes screaming betrayal and there is a scream- is it him? And pain. Not emotional but physical, spiking from where his left arm used to be and where did his arm go?

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter because Lewis is dead and Arthur was the one who killed him.

.

When he wakes up he pukes until his stomach is empty enough that he feels like he could die from starvation and cries his little eyes out. Vivi sits next to him, rubbing soothing circles on his back and he convulses away from her but still she touches him and he wants to shake her out of there but in the end he takes her comfort because he is a selfish man.

Later when, his tears stop and he can puke no more he finds out he's been in the hospital, floating in and out of consciousness, for about a week. He finds out that while his parents have visited him they, and she tiptoes around the subject but he knows, he knows, they ultimately think this was his own doing and that Uncle Lance has offered free roam and board for however long it'll take him to heal.

He also finds out she doesn't know what happened to Lewis and he feels his whole world topple over while at the same time he's glad. He's glad she won't have reason to hate him if she doesn't remember.

How fucking disgusting.

.

He gets a prosthetic, just something wooden and absolutely useless, and moves into Lance's house. He doesn't answer any of his questions and when Lewis' parent inevitably knock on his door asking for an explanation he lies. He lies through his white teeth and says it was an accident, and there was some beast. He remembers teeth, vaguely in his dreams, sharp teeth gnawing at his left arm so its not a total lie.

They accept it with teary eyes and he closes the door and doesn't move out of bed for another two weeks.

When he inevitably does get up again, his eyes are baggy and his hair is a black/blonde mess. He works too hard on his machines, creates and discards four arm prototypes in the span of 72 hours before Vivi visits and strong arms him to bed. In the end because she has a life and a job to keep she lends him Mystery for comfort. Mystery who stares at him with his accusing dog eyes and stupid yellow glasses. Mystery whose pearly white canines reminded Arthur too much of flashes from his nightmares.

"It wasn't my fault." Arthur says, running on nothing but coffee and a fear that if he goes to sleep he'll see Lewis in his room, his pale lips mouthing,  _Your fault. Why Arthur? Your fault. Why did you kill me Arthur?_  "It wasn't." He says again even though the dog hasn't barked or moved or done anything but stare at him with those knowing eyes.

The dog says nothing and Arthur bangs his fists on the table, a wrench falls to the ground and his hands ache but he could give less a damn. "It wasn't my fault! Something possessed me. Something possessed me and I didn't kill him! They did!" He yells to absolutely no one. He closes his eyes, but it does not stem the flow of tears. It doesn't stem the burning in his chest threatening to light up Arthur whole in his guilt.

When Arthur opens his eyes the wrench is still on the ground and he still feels like shit but now there are tears on the tabletop. He turns to look at Mystery but the dog is gone. Gone. And Arthur laughs because he must be going insane. That's it.

Arthur laughs, "I'm going insane." He says out loud, gripping his pounding skull. "I'm going insane." He says again, choking against the mucus and tears in his throat. He lays his head on the cool countertop, his brain weary from sleep and sick of balancing himself on one arm. "It wasn't my fault." He whispers.

Later, when Vivi pops by with her black dress still on and Uncle Lance, yells, "I'm home," from downstairs, his tears aren't wiped so much as its permanent part of his face.

"You should've come." Vivi says, petting Mystery who leans into her touch and looks at Arthur as if he's judging him.

Arthur mumbles something, his movements slow as he works on the frame, just bits of metal really. Bits of metal that can't bring back the dead.

"Lewis wouldn't have wanted you to suffer like this." Vivi says and Arthur hears whispers in the corner of his brain. If only she knew.

She comes close, puts his hand on his shoulder, the left one, the one that helped push Lewi-

"Don't touch me."

"Art-"

" _Don't touch me_." He says and in his panic, in his  _cowardice_ , he flinches from her and moves to the other side of the room. He wants to apologize when he sees the look of hurt in her face because he may have been Lewis' best friend but she was his girlfriend and she was mourning too. He could tell by her red eyes, her puffy lips, the hand that shook while petting Mystery. She was mourning and she couldn't turn to him because he was-

He was Lewis' murderer.

He could deny it all he wanted, blame it on the spirit that haunted the caves but he knew, deep in his selfish, betraying heart; he had blood on his hands.

Even the King of Denial couldn't deny this and while Arthur has been good at denying things throughout the years, he isn't so blind to be king. Not on this matter.

.

He gets his prosthetic up and running in months time and it works great, he can feel a little through the cold metal, not much but that's fine. He can twist and turn his arm with a wide range of motion and practically no delay. Uncle Lance sets up a patent under his name that makes him rich in a matter of weeks. By the time half a year's passed by he's practically a millionaire.

He grins at Vivi's congratulatory jig and then thinks about Lewis. How Lewis will never be able to smile again, how Lewis will never feel again from any appendage, how he'll never get to celebrate anything again.

And then he's feeling down again and the nightmares come back. But sometimes they don't so Arthur feels more guilt in compensation.

.

Arthur's never really had proper drinks before, he turned twenty-one right after the incident and didn't have time since, too busy grieving and denying but Uncle Lance is out and one of his co-workers brought beers to work and subsequently forgot it in the garage's freezer. It tastes horrible and he only gets tipsy but his grief fuels him the rest of the way to a practically sad drunk.

He stumbles his way to the living room and goes to Galahad's cage. They've been lukewarm friends when Arthur was a teenager, Arthur's only interaction with the hamster back then being reluctant babysitting and as an adult Arthur only really interacted with Galahad when the hamster stole his screws and bolts (only his, not any of the other workers and definitely not Uncle Lance's). But as Arthur was forced into his self-exiled misery it seems they've gotten along better. Or, at least, the hamster stole his stuff less.

He opens the top off and reaches inside, glad when the hamster doesn't struggle to leave in his palm.

"You understand me don't you buddy?" Arthur slurs.

Galahad's nose twitches.

"Of course you do." Arthur says, his breath hitching and his hand shaking so much Galahad falls over, his wheels uneven on Arthur's trembling palm.

"Sorry." Arthur says, "Sorry. Sorry." A tear slips down his cheek. He places Galahad down on the coffee table, and sits down, his left sleeve flopping onto the coffee table. Galahad wheels over to the empty sleeve, his little mouth squeaking in what Arthur would think was a questioning tone.

Arthur swallows, and when that doesn't work to clear his throat, opens another beer can and gulps it down in one swig. It burns through his throat but thanks to his teenage years, he's more or less used to it. He places his head gently on the table, cheek flat against polished wood and opens his eyes to take in the blurry form that is Galahad.

"Y'know that…" He breathes in. Exhales shakily, "that thing I said?" Galahad pauses, or at least that's what Arthur thinks he does. Either way the sound of wheeling stops and Galahad starts chittering. "That you were broken. You're not. You're not broken."

He hiccups, the tears falling sideways across the ridge of his nose to pool wet somewhere around his ears.

"You're not broken because if you're broken that means I'm broken too."

"I don't want to be broken." Arthur admits into the quiet night.  _Too late,_ a vicious part of his mind says.

He feels something wet pushing against his cheek and he closes his eyes. He smiles pathetically, "Thank you Galaham."

Galaham chitters next to his ear and he opens his eyes, too drunk and too consumed with tears to see the little rodent properly but he thinks he's giving him a worried look.

Arthur lifts his head back up and tries to open another can of beer but then he thinks of Lewis. Lewis who didn't get to drink alcohol, Lewis who died before he turned twenty-one. Lewis who would have been twenty-two today if it hadn't been for Arthur.

Galahad is a smart hamster, if he does say so himself, and so he knows when Arthur says,  _I'm sorry_ , for the billionth time that night, it's not aimed at Galahad himself, not for the words a kid said long ago, but someone else. Someone who Arthur's done wrong. Galahad accepts the apologies anyway and pretends the words are for him because how will Arthur hear forgiveness otherwise?

He won't. He won't and that's what haunts the boy at night.

.

Arthur, in spite of being rich, still can not get along with his parents and still can not be completely trusted on his own and so he stays with his uncle. One day, as inevitable with time, he gets better. He's not healed, he's not done grieving, he still has nightmares but he is better. So he decides to do something Lewis would have wanted him to do and that is to make Vivi happy. He cleans up the horrid beard he's been having for months and does up his hair in spikes again and dyes his hair that sunny blonde, leaving the two little locks in the front black and when Vivi sees him she smiles.

Vivi still doesn't know what transpired that night. Vivi who has been trying with all her might to cheer him up. She deserves some happiness. She deserves not to be dragged down with him and so Arthur has it all planned out. Before, they couldn't travel too far from home or else risk being fired for missing work but this time he has money and so they plan it all out to the very tips of Canada to the very bottom of Mexico, even going so far as to maybe think about backpacking Europe. It's a tentative plan but entirely possible with the money Arthur's getting from the patent.

"But first," Vivi says, smiling that mischievous smile that only smelled trouble, "something a little closer to home."

Arthur grins and Mystery barks and they all go into the Mystery Skulls Van that hasn't seen big mileage in a long time and it almost feels the same again.

.

They're heading to the next town over to get to their first location, the same one Lewis died in and Arthur prays they'll get through the place quickly.

They don't. The van breaks down in front of a mansion even though he swears he did all the relevant mechanical checks before they set off. The purple mansion screams of something that will probably give Arthur a heart attack and he begs Vivi to stay in the van with him but she won't take any of it.

"Are you sure we should go inside there?" Arthur asks. The mansion's grounds are filled with scraggly trees, which bare branches reaches towards the ground like swooping arms and which twisted bark feels like it's hiding something inside it. Some kind of dead body or something.

"It's not even in our haunted destinations and you're scared." Vivi laughs, "Come on, we'll just ask for some gas. I'm sure a big mansion like this has some chauffeur or private mechanic or something."

"I'm a mechanic." Arthur grumbles.

"A sucky one." Vivi says, she lifts her hand to knock on the door but the large oak opens by itself.

Arthur feels something twist in his stomach.

This wasn't going to be good. Why the fuck did he suggest a paranormal tour around North America again?

**Author's Note:**

> What was that you said? Christmas time fics should be fluffy? *Squints* What is this fluff you speak of? I went with this title so it could be a lure thinking there was a happy ending. There isn't. I ended this fic at that point because I couldn't think of anything else and I was tired. Might continue later.
> 
> Alternative titles to this fic: Green didn't make me mean. (It made me meaner).  
> OR  
> The Nile is a river I think I float on. In reality I'm drowning. (That's the beauty of Denial.)


End file.
